The present invention relates, in general, to improving network functionality, and more specifically to using metadata to construct network overlays.
Computer networks, and more specifically the Internet, have become essential to the conduct of business. As such, networks are driven to provide more bandwidth, more flexibility, and more security, to name a few. Overlay Networks have emerged as a way to achieve more functionality from networks which can be quite unorganized and even chaotic. Overlay Networks are built on top of other networks. Nodes in the overlay can be thought of as being connected by virtual or logical links, each of which corresponds to a path, perhaps through many physical links, in the underlying network. For example, many peer-to-peer networks are overlay networks because they run on top of the Internet, and Dial-up Internet is an overlay upon a telephone network.
Overlays can also be useful in other ways, such as, for example, data searching. When a virtual network is built on top of an existing network, it can be used to manage and administer the network. If all nodes that host sensitive data need to be secured, an overlay network can be formed of all such nodes. For maintenance purposes, if a set of nodes need to be installed with new software, an overlay of such nodes can be created, and an application that distributes software can be configured to distribute the new software to that network of nodes.